U. of California System Will Suspend SAT Requirement Due to Student Stress

The University of California system announced recently that it will suspend its standardized test requirement for incoming freshman to alleviate stress caused by the Chinese virus pandemic. Now, the system may abandon its standardized testing requirement indefinitely in order to achieve “equitable treatment” of applicants.

According to a report by Campus Reform, the University of California system, which consists of 10 campuses, may no longer require that students take the SAT or ACT exam as part of the admissions process.

In April, the university system announced that it would not require an SAT or ACT score for members of the incoming freshman class due to concerns that “anxious” students would be unable to perform well on the exam as a result of the Chinese virus pandemic. Moreover, many testing centers around the country were forced to cancel administrations of the SAT exam in response to the pandemic.

University of California System President Janet Napolitano released this week that she plans to eliminate the standardized testing requirement for applicants to the University of California by 2025. Under the proposed policy, students would only take the SAT or ACT exam if they are applying for specific scholarships.

Many universities and colleges have announced plans to transition away from standardized testing over concerns that low-income high school students are often deprived of study resources such as private tutors. Others have questioned if the SAT and ACT exams are efficient measures of a student’s ability to perform in college.

Napolitano claims, however, that the system will develop a specific admissions test for students applying for admission to the University of California system.

Breitbart News reported in September 2019 that Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colorado, had dropped their standardized testing requirement in an effort to “increase the diversity of the student body.”

Stay tuned to Breitbart News for more updates on this story.